Sometimes Brand-Name Drugs Really Are Better

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When you go to the pharmacy for aspirin, do you buy Bayer or the private-label generic alternative offered by chains such as CVS? The price for Bayer's version is more than twice that of CVS's, yet the active ingredient is exactly the same. The choice may seem trivial, but it provides insight into larger economic and health questions.

Research by Matthew Gentzkow of the University of Chicago -- who last week won the prestigious John Bates Clark prize for the best young economist in the U.S. -- and co-authors studied exactly this question. They estimate that U.S. consumers would save $32 billion a year by switching to generic labels for goods (not just aspirin) that are equivalent to their brand-name alternatives.

Gentzkow and colleagues used data from the Nielsen Homescan Consumer Panel, which gave households optical scanners to record the barcodes of all packaged goods they bought, and surveyed additional household characteristics. They found that generics accounted for 71 percent of all headache pills purchased (including aspirin, ibuprofen and related products) and 49 percent of the dollars spent on those pills.

Independent Task Force Reports

Rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in low- and middle-income countries are increasing faster than in wealthier countries. The Independent Task Force outlines a plan for collective action on this growing epidemic.